


Sitting on Carpets in the Basement of Heaven

by JackieOKCorral



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, It happens, Other, Pining, and end up a little more human, linear time and its pitfalls, sometimes you have a run in with the son of satan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 01:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21235631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackieOKCorral/pseuds/JackieOKCorral
Summary: After Adam gave him his corporeal form again, some things changed for Aziraphale. He's going to need Crowley to talk him through it.(Or, Crowley and Aziraphale dinner date their way through town after the Nonpocalypse and discuss time, power, and human relationships without admitting any of it applies to them.)





	Sitting on Carpets in the Basement of Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> I reread the book and then read the script book all in the space of a couple of weeks, so characterization is an unholy conglomeration of both.
> 
> Thanks so much to [mrstrentreznor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrstrentreznor/pseuds/mrstrentreznor) for pre-reading and reassurance! 
> 
> The title is from Arcade Fire's song ["Put Your Money on Me."](https://genius.com/Arcade-fire-put-your-money-on-me-lyrics)

Crowley, being a snake, is capable of twisting into the right shape for almost any occasion. He's far less attached to his perception of who he is than Aziraphale, having remade himself since his creation and Fall. He knows he will keep shedding his skin, in some form or fashion, for as long as he’s around.

This is why he watches Aziraphale very carefully, in the days and weeks after they save each other from their respective murderous bureaucracies. Aziraphale has always retreated into the bulwark of certainty when faced with any sort of question about the will of God. That certainty carried over into his sense of self. Crowley has never met another being so stubbornly determined to be true to himself, while simultaneously telling himself that he was someone else entirely.

He sees it, in their conversations now. Crowley says something like, “Well, that’s humans for you, they never know what they’re doing till they’ve already done it.” Aziraphale opens his mouth, and Crowley knows from the didactic light in his eye and superior lift of his brow that he’s about to make a pronouncement about how even the will of man must be subsumed to the plan of God in the end…

And then Aziraphale closes his mouth, with an abrupt click like a full stop. His face goes a little squishy with confusion and loss, a loss that Crowley still feels, and Crowley knows that he just remembered how few certainties there actually are.

It affects the angel in small ways, at first. He forgets his fob medal one day and then can’t stop patting the waistcoat where he usually keeps it, like toddler Warlock used to reach for Crowley’s hand when they were out in a strange place.

Then he forgets his waistcoat, and coat, and Crowley steps into the shop during the rare operating hours to find his angel in his shirtsleeves. Crowley, who has been to any number of Roman orgies, and music festivals that made Roman orgies look like a family outing, trips over his own boots at the sight, and only saves himself from a tumble with a balancing arch back that is entirely inhuman.

“Mind the step,” Aziraphale says without looking up from his book, in the tone of someone who hopes the person meant to mind the step fails to heed the warning. Then, “Oh! Crowley! Whatever is the matter?”

Crowley dislodges his tongue from the roof of his mouth and croaks, “Jacket. Waistcoat.” He gives a helpless wave at the white shirt. “Why.”

“Oh. Well. If you must know, I was dreadfully warm in them. Climate change, I suppose. Time was when London was never truly warm, compared to where we were stationed before!” One soft hand pats the side where the fob medal usually resides safe in its waistcoat home, and meets only linen. It falls to Aziraphale’s side again in confusion.

Crowley tilts his head in interrogation. “I don’t… you? Were warm?”

Aziraphale has always been impervious to the elements. While he notices and occasionally compliments (or, more rarely, complains about) them, they’ve never truly affected his comfort one way or another.

“Well, yes, my dear fellow. It is July, after all.”

Aziraphale’s pale blue eyes shoot an imploring glance in Crowley’s direction, and Crowley can almost hear him begging Crowley not to push it, not to do the thing where he keeps asking question after question until Aziraphale’s forced to come to an inevitable conclusion.

Crowley doesn’t ask the question. He doesn’t know what the conclusion will be, and for once, the uncertainty scares him.

#

Time, as it turns out, is weird.

Once you’ve become accustomed to it, everything becomes relative to how much of it has passed or not passed since a certain demarcation in its stream. Not that it’s really like a stream, because streams tend to mosey in a particular direction, for all that they do it elliptically. Except that it is like a stream.

It isn’t like a basket, either, because for all that it curves it never really ends, except that it does end, because Heaven stands outside it. Except the parts that are inside it. Aziraphale once saw the whole of the Great Plan contained in a basket on a river, so he says he likes that image, but it isn’t right. Two cones stacked end-to-end, dots on a field, they all fall short. There are simply no human terms that can capture what time is or is not, because no linear being can escape it.

Crowley was not designed to be linear, so he can comprehend the absence of time, even though he’s been trapped in the weave of its net since he Fell. He remembers coaxing the stars into existence the same way he remembers worshipping at the throne, the same way he remembers Lucifer asking the questions he was asking with a kaleidoscope of color shifting across his form: like wet pages in a book, pressed together and become one, nothing happening before or after the other but all at once. The Fall is the first thing he remembers as a first.

It was horrible, of course, but it could have been worse. He was allowed to keep his own body, twisted as it had become with the removal of Grace from its structural foundation. He thinks of it a bit as if a load-bearing wall had been knocked out of a building without the proper supports having been put in place first. In any case, the being he became in Hell is his true self, and the human body he inhabits was created to spec, with a great many after-market mods. He fits into it nicely, in all its permutations, even though he only breaks out his true form on rare occasions, just to keep in practice. All those eyes. He doesn’t need that much perspective.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, was issued a body by Heaven and then required to stuff as much of his essence into it as possible, which of course was a tight fit for a principality. His wings, when they manifest, are actually a visual representation of all the bits and pieces that _don’t _fit. (Crowley’s are just wings. They’re very pretty and he’s extremely vain about them.)

Enough of Aziraphale has stood outside time, since he came to Earth, that Crowley will occasionally mention something unimportant, like, “Oh, it’s the six thousand and twelfth anniversary of the time we stood on the wall and watched Adam slaughter that lion, memories, eh?”

_(I remember your wing curving over me, shelter from the very first storm, it reminded me of the firmament we talked about putting over the earth before I Fell)_

And Aziraphale’s eyes will turn to him blankly, gaze faraway and looking at something Crowley can’t see, before he focuses and says, “Oh! My dear—so it is,” in a way that means he’s taking Crowley’s word for it. Crowley thinks about lying, sometimes, just for fun—maybe tell him it’s actually been seven thousand years and see how long it takes Aziraphale to notice—but in the end, he always tells himself he’ll do it tomorrow.

The thing of it is, form shapes nature. There are certain ways of behavior appropriate to humans which are in fact welded into the genes. Crowley, although an occult being, is inside a fairly decent approximation of human genetics when he inhabits a human body, and he has been mostly in that body for millennia. His tongue is useful for a number of purposes a regular snake’s tongue could never serve, one of which is decoding DNA. He understands humanity because he understands what it means to be human from the inside.

“It’s like the snuffboxes, you see,” Aziraphale says, apropos of nothing, on an afternoon when he’s drinking tea and reading, and Crowley’s smelling the tea and staring out the window at the rainy London traffic passing them by, but they’re doing it together, so it’s fine.

Crowley was thinking about the way Aziraphale’s got a blanket around his shoulders, and how the tips of his fingers are actually a little trembly with what looks like cold when he reaches for his teacup, so he mumbles, “Oh, yeah, ‘f course,” and almost forgets to ask, “What is?”

Aziraphale takes a long sip of tea, makes a face as he discovers it’s gone cold again, and waves his hand over it to warm it. “The way things are now.”

“Useless relics of a past no one wants to revisit?” Crowley hazards, and Aziraphale sniffs in reproof.

“_Really_, my dear. There’s no need to be deliberately obtuse. I’ve seen that you notice… this.” He tugs at the blanket to make it obvious.

“It’s a dreadful tartan. Abominable. Of course I’ve noticed. Like a giant poke right in the eye, isn’t it.”

“Well, if you don’t want to talk about it.” Aziraphale picks up his book again.

Crowley broods at the cover and thinks about buying him a Kindle just to fuck with him. He’ll probably gripe about how he can’t put any of his first editions on it and ask why the female warrior company would want to invoke the image of _burning _books. “I don’t. Unless you do.”

Aziraphale closes his book again and straightens, his face a picture of delight. “I do! Thank you. It’s like the snuffboxes. Durable containers, but too easily opened.” He looks at Crowley expectantly.

Some sort of response seems to be required, but he’ll be damned again if he knows what. “Boxes for a substance that’ll rot your gums right out of your face,” he tries. “That’s what things are like now?”

Aziraphale’s expression slides into reproach. “Must you? I’m attempting to explain.”

“And being about as clear as one of the major prophets.” Crowley kicks back and slings his legs over the arm of his chair. “Go on then. Try harder.”

“It’s just… before, it was as if the lid was open and the snuff was spilling everywhere. And now it’s as if the lid is closed.” He sips his tea again. “Crowley, I loved humanity before. But I didn’t understand them. Not like you.”

In Crowley’s opinion, Aziraphale understood enough about humanity to embody some of its more enjoyable excesses, which was why the demon understood him, too. “And now you understand them like I do?”

“I’m beginning to. I think.”

Crowley still doesn’t comprehend what Aziraphale’s trying to tell him, the significance writ large on his face even though it’s an impossible cipher for him to decode. “Is that a bad thing?”

Aziraphale hesitates, for a very long while. Crowley waits, unblinking.

At last, Aziraphale says, “I don’t know,” and that’s when Crowley realizes that he really is beginning to understand.

Once he’s back in his flat, looking over the city, Crowley thinks about snuffboxes, and other exquisitely wrought containers for personal vice. Something’s opening inside of him. He desperately wants to slam it shut again but he can’t find the hinges, so instead he tucks it into a metaphorical coat pocket that will hold the lid in place. And then he thinks about trading bodies with the angel, and how it felt, and how it didn’t feel.

He returns to the bookshop a week later, clicking the lock open with a snap. Aziraphale looks up with a bright welcome as soon as he realizes who’s there. “Oh! Crowley, do look—an Aldene edition of Dante, lately come from the Wimsey family—”

“Don’t care about that hack. Show me your wings,” Crowley demands.

Aziraphale sniffs. “I don’t believe I will, if you’re going to be so rude about it.”

“Angel.” Crowley’s no good with hard feelings. They get too big for his form and they steal his words until he just wants to hiss with fear. He zooms up into Aziraphale’s space and begs, “_Please_.”

Aziraphale looks at him askance. “What’s got into you?”

Crowley reaches for him, then snatches his hands back. “I jussst want to ssssee.” Dammit.

Aziraphale searches his face while Crowley tries to stare him down (not an easy feat in sunglasses). “Very well. As you wish.”

He steps into the middle of the room, and the floor lengthens beneath him so that the tables and bookshelves are farther away. Even so, he’s cautious and slow with the unfurling, going an inch at a time until they’re fully open and curved close to the ceiling. “There. Happy?”

Crowley steps closer, sniffing. He reaches one hand again, and hovers it above the downy surface. “May I?”

“Of course,” Aziraphale replies, as if they do this every day, as if an angel’s wings aren’t the most personal parts of them, the parts so holy they can’t possibly fit inside a standard issue body, the most pure love and grace taken feathered form.

Despite the angel’s nonchalance, Crowley’s hand is shaking a little when he lays it on one wing.

It’s not there.

He bends to taste with his snake’s tongue. Aziraphale shivers, but gives no word of protest.

All the divine mystery is—well, it’s _there_, Aziraphale is still Aziraphale, but it’s not contained in the visual metaphor of wings. These are just a part of Aziraphale’s body. Given, they’re ethereal enough that they’ve left his clothes intact. But Crowley suspects that’s just because the person who gave them to Aziraphale didn’t consider that wings bursting from shoulder blades must therefore burst through the clothing that covers those shoulder blades.

“Oh, angel,” he breathes, watching his hand complete its sweep down the sensitive curve of the pinion joint as if it belongs to someone else. Maybe it does. “What has he done to you?”

#

_He, _of course, is Adam Young, and he is currently enjoying an idyllic existence as a fairly normal boy.

Crowley doesn’t often wish bad things on individual members of humanity, seeing as they usually take care of that on their own, but in this case he’s willing to make an exception. Especially since, in this case, the member of humanity in question is quite able to defend himself from Crowley’s ill-wishes.

“It’s nothing bad,” Aziraphale babbles, in the placating way Crowley hates because it’s always justifying someone else’s fuck-ups. “I expect he didn’t understand that the body wasn’t _mine_, per se, just what I was used to using, and so he made me fit into it properly. As he said, I shouldn’t be two people.”

“Are you _aging_?” Crowley demands in horror. The only thing worse than losing Aziraphale in one fell swoop: to lose him in rapid increments, watching him fade away in that awful slide humans do until they’re nothing but a drift of dust and bone in a wooden box or a float of ash into the sky.

“I don’t believe so, no.” Aziraphale smiles. “I can still perform miracles. It’s still _me, _Crowley. I’m just... fitting in better.”

“Like the snuffboxes,” Crowley says, dazed. His palm still rests on Aziraphale’s wing, just next to the shoulder blade. Aziraphale hasn’t moved. He’s craning his head to speak over his shoulder, as if this isn’t all perfectly ridiculous.

“Yes! Now you’re getting it. Like the snuffboxes.”

Crowley lets his hand drop. “That… is a _terrible _metaphor, angel. One would think after all the reading you’ve done, you’d have a better grasp of the English language.”

“Well. Pardon me for never having before had occasion to describe the sensation of an ethereal being suddenly squeezing into a form that’s not… _quite_… mortal.”

“Squeezing?” Crowley’s heart contracts as if in sympathy. Useless organ. He has no idea why he ever bothered activating it.

“Well, not truly. It’s not uncomfortable. It’s only odd.” Aziraphale folds his wings back into hiding and turns to face him again. “I’ve considered contacting Adam for clarification, but I doubt he can offer any.”

Crowley, with the knowledge gained of living in close proximity to another human boy for a number of years, can only agree. From what he’s seen, boys of that age have absolutely no insight into their actions or motivations, and no desire to gain any either.

#

They’re at the park, feeding grapes to the ducks because Aziraphale read that bread is actually bad for them, when Crowley notices him making an aborted gesture. It’s not the first time he’s seen the angel start to snap, falter, and fold his hand into a loose fist lately, but it’s the first time he’s realized what it means.

“Miracle away, angel, they can’t call them frivolous now.” Maybe he’ll thwart it, just for old times’ sake.

“True, but I may call them that.”

Crowley hates a lot of things, but asking for clarification about something Aziraphale said is rapidly climbing the list. Things were a lot simpler when they were nominal mortal enemies and he knew exactly what the angel was thinking most times. He sneers and mouths, _I may call them that _as if the words are sticking to his teeth and overall despises the need, but in the end he does ask. “What do you mean? Stop being so elliptical, for Someone’s sake.”

“I don’t mean to be.” Reticence regarding personal matters, Crowley knows, is both a habit cultivated by Aziraphale’s pre-Nonpocalypse circumstances and a natural part of his personality, so he waits. Sure enough, Aziraphale deigns to elaborate after a few more minutes have passed. “Some things are difficult to think, now, which makes them difficult to say.”

Tell him about it. Just the turn of muscle in the angel’s wrists as he tosses the grapes to the birds is giving Crowley all sorts of difficult thoughts. The way his hair curls against the nape of his neck. All this exposed skin after centuries of covering it up. _Sweat. _Put there as proof of the Almighty’s never-ending desire to fuck with Crowley’s peace of mind. Saying the things he’s thinking? Bypasses _difficult _and veers directly into _impossible._

He compromises between sullen silence and outright demanding that Aziraphale tell him _everything_, right _now_, at _once, _with, “Don’t be such a baby. Out with it.”

“It’s only… when I was thwarting you, I had a specific goal, don’t you see. Simply to undo what you’d planned to do. Oh, I performed miracles otherwise, of course, but they were often so shortsighted compared to your plans unless I was following orders. Inflating a flat tire, or righting a scoop of ice cream back onto its cone, or visiting a saint with divine ecstasy.”

“Not so sure that last wasn’t more beneficial to us,” Crowley mutters. “Pity the frustrated nuns who witnessed the visit. Or don’t, they had their fun later.”

“Yes, but my point is, it was all very poorly thought-out. One human, given a temporary bit of happiness, has a limited range of effect. You were always much more understanding of the ways in which to spread low-grade evil with a wide spray. I just didn’t realize how I might do the same for _my _side. To me, it all seemed to be happening at one point and then ending.”

It takes Crowley a few minutes to process that. When he understands, it hits him like a horse’s kick to the gut. Part of Aziraphale was always standing outside of time, which meant he couldn’t foresee how one small change could ripple through moments ever outward, causing effect after effect after effect until the original change had long been smoothed out of living memory. He was bound to the moment in which he had projected himself. It explains a lot. Including why he hasn’t experienced the internal shriek of _Six! Thousand! Years! _the way Crowley does basically at all times.

He clears his throat with even less necessity than usual. “I don’t see how that’s keeping you from performing miracles _now_.”

“Well, now I’m not so certain there’s a Plan to protect them from my own poor judgement.”

“Ah.” Crowley nods. “Fragile creatures, aren’t they. One wrong move and a whole three generations down the drain.”

“Exactly! I’d far rather spread a sort of general joy and kindness that’s less personal, but I can’t exactly picture it.” Aziraphale frowns. The lost look is back.

“Why, angel,” Crowley says, soft-voiced, and all the mockery he’d hoped would infiltrate his tone is absent, “Don’t tell me you’re having to develop an _imagination_. Whatever would the Head Office say?”

With a quick gesture, Aziraphale rolls the last grape to a particularly scruffy-looking duck who’s been shoved aside by his fellows repeatedly. “My dear, I couldn’t give one tenth of a damn.”

#

The night Aziraphale came to his flat, after the world nearly ended, after he held Crowley’s hand on the bus, Crowley really thought something might change, but as it turns out it takes more than a sudden terrifying slide into outright rebellion to undo an eternity’s worth of fear and indoctrination. Aziraphale spent the night, yes, but he did so sitting primly upon a chair he snapped into being, drinking tea he’d forced into existence in Crowley’s shiny new kitchen while they examined Agnes’ final scrap of prophecy and plotted their escapes. He hasn’t returned since.

Crowley isn’t keeping track, or anything, but he’s fairly certain he’s initiating a solid two-thirds of their interactions even now. The main difference is, Aziraphale is _trying_. Enough so that when the angel reaches for his elbow to steer him in a particular direction as they walk, Crowley no longer nearly jumps out of his skin with startlement.

Instead, he fiercely instructs himself to keep cool and walk as if nothing’s happened. It’s getting easier, even when Aziraphale neglects to release his grip long past when the need for guidance has passed. The angel’s in his shirtsleeves again, with his cuffs rolled and collar undone. It’s beyond endurance.

“My dear,” Aziraphale begins, “I’d like to ask a favor of you, if it wouldn’t be too great an imposition.”

Crowley sneers. “I don’t do favors. Quid pro quo or nothing.”

Aziraphale has the absolute gall to pat Crowley’s arm with his free hand rather than call him out on the lie. Doesn’t he care that Crowley has to _walk_? “Oh naturally. I misspoke. I’ll reciprocate any way you like.”

Crowley would like many reciprocations in several different ways, all of which flash disturbingly through his mind in an avalanche of pornographic detail within a matter of seconds. “What do you _want_, angel?”

“I’d like it if you could teach me a little of how you work your wiles. However do you plan them?”

In point of fact, Crowley doesn’t plan much these days. Being on the earth is far less taxing now that he doesn’t have superiors to appease. As far as he’s concerned the human race can keep sending itself to Hell all on its own accord without his help, unless he’s feeling particularly annoyed with them one day. “Thinking of switching sides? Seems a bit sudden.”

Aziraphale chooses to treat the question seriously. “How could I ever switch sides again, when you and I make such a good team? No. I’ve always been so impressed by your ability to predict the range of your temptations upon the general population. It’s practically a science. I’d like to learn how to apply the technique, only without the, er, negative side of the equation.” He gives Crowley a sidelong glance and a little squeeze of the arm. Everything is too much all the time. Crowley snaps them to St. James’ Park so he can _think_.

Aziraphale rocks on his heels when they reappear, catching his balance. “Must you be so sudden, Crowley?”

Crowley ignores the question. “Fine. Let me explain. Effectiveness is about one simple thing: power.” He points at the Russian attaché and Dominican aide on the footbridge across the way, facing opposite directions while they carry on an impassioned whispered argument about the documents in the backpack the attaché is holding. “I make those peons’ lives miserable, I only affect two people. Neither of them have enough humans in their sphere of influence to make a true difference. Nobody looking to either of those sad sacks for help, or a kind word, or a smile. No one looking at them at all, really.”

He gestures to the left, where the attaché's boss awaits in the back of a darkly tinted Mercedes, hiding behind a newspaper. “Now, _there’s _the big fish. You make him upset and everyone at the embassy’s paying the price. Ten or more direct reports in the building, and once he’s had a word with each, they all have their own underlings to make unhappy, and so on, not to mention their families. One minor traffic accident on his way to an important meeting, throw in a driver who’s at fault but blames the ambassador’s chauffeur, and you’ve got dozens of unhappy people in one fell swoop.”

“Oh, well done!” Aziraphale gives a little clap of approval. At Crowley’s glance of surprise, he catches himself and adds conscientiously, “Reprehensible, of course. But quite clever.” He frowns. “But, my dear, how do you predict what will happen? Before, you know, I was always acting on orders, and they were never inclined to elaborate on _why_, or how it would affect the Plan.”

“I don’t predict _exactly _what will happen. I understand how humans relate to each other, and that predicts the events for me.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale appears to mull that over for a moment. “I believe that is where my own facility falls short. I don’t in general understand the relationships part of humanity. I had hoped my extensive reading on the subject would offer some illumination, but I found it more confusing than anything else.”

“Yes, all very messy, Heaven doesn’t care to get its hands dirty with that stuff. No wonder you’re no good at it.”

Crowley has an idea. It’s the barest trickle of an idea but it takes shape into a wider flow of inspiration the moment he gives it his attention. He can almost see the way its consequences will play out, and his imagination isn’t providing him with much encouragement. Nonetheless, his mouth operates independent of his lack of hope and says, “Could give you a hand with it, if you like. Teach you a bit about how they do it.”

Aziraphale gives a little wiggle of excitement. It’s appallingly endearing. “I would_ love _to learn from you. Thank you.”

“We’ll start tomorrow, then,” Crowley says, choosing a date which will allow him time to yell at himself in the mirror for foolishness, but not enough to talk his reflection into quitting.

“How exciting.” Aziraphale rises again, this time offering his arm to Crowley, who takes it after a pause he hopes was undetectable. “Imagine. An angel learning to interact with humans as they do with one another rather than remaining above the fray. ‘Gone native’ indeed.” He gives Crowley’s arm yet another pat. Crowley is going to _implode. _“And a good thing too.”

#

“All right,” Crowley begins the next day. He’s wearing sunglasses that are ten percent darker than normal, having been struck with the fear that his eyes will give something away during the educational process. Aziraphale appears not to have noticed, but then, that’s the whole issue, isn’t it? Crowley’s digging a ditch straight to Hell, wide enough just for himself, with this gambit. “For humans, most relationships are about power, even the ones that they say are about love. Maybe _especially _the ones they say are about love. Take a look around.”

Aziraphale obeys, eyes bright with interest. They’re in a Japanese noodle place, chosen by Crowley for its small size. He might have been hoping that the entire expedition would prove to be a failure on the training front and turn into a date, but it turns out the place was given a favorable write-up in an issue of _GQ _that came out recently and it’s packed. Crowley, who invented men’s fashion magazines as a rebuke to Aziraphale so subtle that it went over his head entirely, feels a little betrayed by the entire thing.

Crowley juts his chin in the direction of a man and woman sitting together, the man talking animatedly while the woman pokes dejectedly at her broth and makes one-word replies. “Let’s start small. Those two. What do you think?”

Aziraphale tilts his head in speculation. “It looks to me as if the young lady holds the power in the situation. Her young man is making an extensive effort to impress her and, it seems, not succeeding. Perhaps I should nudge him in the conversational direction of one of her interests?”

“You could.” Crowley taps absent-mindedly against his glass of water. “But it wouldn’t help much. He’s been monopolizing the conversation the entire time they’ve been here. Barely asked her a thing about herself. If you get him to accidentally touch on a topic she cares about, two things could happen. One, she’ll talk about it, and he’ll tell her she talked about it wrong. Or two, she’ll be fooled into thinking maybe they do have a connection after all, and putting up with his nonsense for a lot longer than she would’ve otherwise.”

The angel gives him a mildly reproachful look. “A bit cynical, Crowley, wouldn’t you say?”

“‘M a demon, cynicism’s a feature, not a bug. But no, I just understand the power dynamics manifesting here. He’s a man, so he’s got the structural power, and it’s tricked him into thinking he’s fascinating and should be the first authority on, well, everything. She’s a woman, she knows he’s ridiculous, but she’s been trained to be _nice_ even when she’s bored to tears and wishing she could get home and break in her new vibrator that just came in the post.”

Aziraphale, far from blushing as he’d hoped, perks up in interest. “Well. Then perhaps it would be more helpful to give her the fortitude to tell him the truth. Set her free to enjoy the rest of her evening before it’s too late!”

“Ah. You’d think, if you didn’t know men.” Crowley’s memories flash back to all the times he’s been a woman, and the many, many men who’ve tried to do things to his body in that form without his permission. Most of the time they came away with third degree burns. “If she’s honest, though, he may kill her. Or he might just call her a name, or post rude things on social media, or harass her on her mobile. Not very likely he’ll take it well, is it?”

Aziraphale nods, eyes still bright with enthusiasm. “Let’s approach this from another angle, my dear. If you were intent on increasing the misery of the situation, what would you do?”

“You bastard,” Crowley murmurs, an unwilling smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “That’s cheating, that is. Fine, I’ll allow it. I would nudge her a bit to leave an opening for him to invite himself to walk her back to hers when they leave. There’s a seventy-five percent chance she’ll agree to a second date just to get out of listening to him talk any more. There’s a fifty-fifty chance that she’ll invite him up at the door and sleep with him out of sheer politeness.”

“Ah. I see. In that case, my course of action ought to be making certain he gets trapped in the toilets while she makes her escape. After the bill’s been paid, naturally.”

Crowley makes a there-you-have-it gesture. “Too clever by far.”

Aziraphale bites into a dumpling and smiles beatifically. Once he’s swallowed, he says, “I _am _accustomed to thwarting you. It seems I do a little better when I have your wiles to keep me on my toes.”

Crowley can only dream of keeping Aziraphale on his toes with certain wiles he’s shoved deep, deep down in his consciousness and then covered with a decorative doily. “That doesn’t count. It’s cheating.”

“Merely making the most of my available resources.” Aziraphale frowns. “But, Crowley, how does this apply to the original question of sending out more general well-being and love into the world? What does power have to do with time?”

“Like I said, we’re starting small. We’ll work our way up to the bigger operations eventually. And,” Crowley continues slowly, trying to verbalize concepts he’s never bothered to put into words before, “power has lots to do with time. Without time, desire doesn’t have a bite, because there’s no sense of time running _out_. No urgency. Power comes from the ability to satisfy a desire, or take away the possibility of satisfaction. Things going by too fast? Better fill your days with as much satisfaction as you can get. All the time in the world? No need to fret.” Ugh. What is he saying? Why doesn’t he just lease a billboard outside the angel’s bookstore and write the contents of his psyche on it?

“I’m beginning to wonder if you might have an ulterior motive.” Aziraphale gives him an arch glance. Crowley’s about to issue a panicked denial when the angel continues, “The longer you can delay my efficacy, the less good I’ll be doing.”

“Nonsense, you’re thwarting evil simply by existing,” Crowley’s mouth says, entirely without his brain’s participation, and Aziraphale blushes.

Crowley’s saved from having to follow that up with any appearance of normalcy by the server approaching and saying in a discreet whisper, “So sorry, sir, but this card’s been declined. I’m sure it’s simply an issue with the company. Would you like to try a different one?”

“No need.” Crowley lets his sunglasses slip down his nose a bit and fixes the human with a direct gaze. The woman’s jaw sags a little. She stares, entranced. “The bill’s already been paid, and I left you a very nice tip.”

“Of course you did,” she replies, her voice distant, and hands him his credit card, then turns and walks away unsteadily.

“Really, my dear,” Aziraphale reproaches. “It’s not like you to fail to pay your debts.”

“It is _exactly _like me. Where have you been?” Crowley approves of humans not paying their credit card balances and tries to set them a good example. Bad example. Whichever. “But in this case, s’not my fault. It’s Dagon, being petty with the accounts.”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows lift. “Your line of credit is through the offices of Hell?”

“No. My credit cards aren’t issued by anyone. They’re just a convenience so I don’t have to go around hypnotizing humans.” Crowley tries to keep a low profile by still transferring funds into the appropriate places when he’s out and about, but he doesn’t think it’ll do his reputation any good to go advertising the fact that he doesn’t actually stiff the server. “Dagon keeps discovering the numbers I’m using and canceling them, to make my life more difficult. It’s good work, really. Have to admire the dedication to detail. Hell’s still testy about the failure to launch nuclear missiles, end the planet, what have you, and they’re a company man.”

“Well, in that case, it’s my treat.” Aziraphale dabs his mouth with his napkin and reaches to pull out his pocketbook, then places a generous stack of bills in the little black folder. “That’s the advantage of sticking to cash.”

Crowley (who gave a couple of people the idea for debit cards, along with the inspiration for charging overages rather than declining them for low balance, all on one particularly ambitious Sunday) can only agree.

#

Crowley loves to sleep. It’s a convenient escape from every irritating facet of the world, providing he chooses his spot wisely and doesn’t accidentally revert back to snake form in the middle of it. (That’s how he ended up spending so much of the nineteenth century off the clock, as it were—he shifted back to snake form about a year into things and then it was too cold to wake up until a long streak of warm weather made it unavoidable.)

Since the Nonpocalypse, however, he’s begun an unsettling new habit. He’s not certain if it’s because the son of Satan himself learned to dream, and therefore his minions picked up the ability as well, or if it’s because, in the absence of orders to do evil, his brain’s becoming more human—terrifying thought—but he strongly suspects he’s beginning to develop a _subconscious_. This, of course, is unacceptable, and he warns his brain against it, but the organ in question seems disinclined to fear his wrath.

And the dreams are straight-up rubbish. Every single one has Aziraphale prominently featured, and they all showcase the angel in domestic situations so mundane Crowley’s disgusted with them five minutes in. Washing dishes. Making tea. Choosing a new set of bookshelves. Crowley’s considering excising the part of his brain that enables them. Show it who’s boss.

“Is it you?” he demands of an orchid he recently put into the entryway. “Ever since I got your sorry excuse for a flowering self and let you begin mooching off me, I’ve started having these—these _nightmares._” He looms closer, vengeful mister in hand, and warns, “You’d best realize on what side your bread is buttered and stay out of my thoughts. Ingrates get sent to the disposal!” The orchid drops an entire blossom in terror. Crowley nods with satisfaction and sprays some water adjacent to it, just to keep it on its toes.

“I ought to tell Aziraphale about the damned things,” he mutters to himself, throwing his body into the throne in the study and letting his legs drape how they may. “He’ll have a field day with that one. ‘Crowley, I’ve always said that deep down, you’re actually a little bit of a dreamer.’ Ridiculous.”

He dismisses the notion, along with the most recent dream, which was of Aziraphale braiding his hair while he was Nanny Ashtoreth. (What _would _Aziraphale’s fingers feel like, combing through his longer locks, tugging on them slightly as he drew the plaits tight? Crowley’s certain he would be excessively gentle. He’s equally certain he’d want to beg the angel to _pull_ till Crowley cried.)

(What would Aziraphale’s soft hands feel like as they trailed up Crowley’s inner thighs, under his skirt?)

Crowley grabs a letter opener from the middle drawer of his desk and taps it against his forehead as a warning. “Watch yourself.”

#

“Right,” he says, next time he meets with Aziraphale. “Time for lesson two. Parents and children.”

“Oh, that’s tricky,” Aziraphale says, but it’s with approval at the challenge. He cuts into his lamb and feta frittata as he appears to mull it over. “I don’t really think there’s an equivalent relationship in the host. Do demons have children?”

“If Satan did, then I suppose we probably could too, but nobody seemed interested in testing the theory. And what do you mean, no equivalent relationship? Or do we just pretend the nephilim didn’t exist, now? Because I remember them, all tall and shiny with little baby wings.” He remembers the screaming, too, when the flood swept in. Their wings were part of their physical bodies, unlike those of their angelic parents, and proved too small to carry them away.

Aziraphale swallows his mouthful of food. “I’d never deny they existed. It can’t be said that they had any sort of relationship with their progenitors, however.”

“Mm, true, it was a ‘wham, bam, thank you ma’am’ situation.” Depressing shit. Time for a shift of subject. “In any case, parents’ relationships with their children are totally ruled by time, so it’s a good one for you to learn about.”

“I do have _some _field experience, thanks to our efforts with Warlock.”

“That hardly counts. You told him to love nature and humans whenever he was outside. I got him the lion’s share of the development time, because I made sure his outside time was strictly scheduled. When he was with me, he was learning about everything else.”

Aziraphale’s lips quirk with restrained amusement. “Wily.”

Crowley’s fairly certain Aziraphale was aware of his machinations and took the necessary measures to counteract them, but since plausible deniability was the name of the game, he’s never bothered to confirm. “Yeah, well, children’s brains are all squishy, aren’t they? They have to learn to be humans because by nature they’re mostly ape. Every time I turned around seemed like I was stopping Warlock doing something life-threatening. Parents are always figuring out they’ve left their kids with massive gaps in their knowledge and then running their legs off trying to catch up before they grow up and leave home.” Crowley dips his finger in his coffee. It’s gone cold, so he warms Aziraphale’s with a quick glower. “The hell of it is, parents also have all those years where they’re bigger than the kids and know more, so they can make their lives absolutely miserable while they’re trying to keep the kids alive long enough to hate them for it later. We really took advantage of that one, back when I was wasting time tempting one by one.”

Not that he ever tempted a parent to, say, strike a child. It was such desperately easy work. Below his level of artistry. That doesn’t mean his fellow demons haven’t done it, of course, but in general humans come up with that on their own, as they do most great evils.

Aziraphale hums in thought. “So. Putting together what you’ve told me about power, and time, and realms of influence… perhaps the best use of _my _time would be spent focusing on the parents who will make certain their offspring have every advantage, so their children become able to better the lives of many others at once.”

“Could be.” Crowley looks at a mother, big bags under her eyes, pushing a stroller down the street and clutching a Starbucks cup in one hand. “Could be a waste of time, too. Having every advantage has put a lot of souls down below in the end.”

“So, tell me what you’d do.”

“Paperwork is a bitch that bites everyone she encounters.” Some men working in the road are catcalling the mother. Crowley spots a yellow marker post nearby, breaks the hydrant below, and directs the spray of water directly into their faces. There. That’s half the block without water and the men’s day ruined. He’s still got it. “I’d create a problem with Ofsted, make it impossible for them to approve child care centers, so parents have figure out who’s taking care of their kids. Time-consuming, draining, everyone’s shitty, the kids are miserable being shuttled back and forth and the parents are guilty all the time. ‘S perfect. Guilt’s the big one, too. So little time and they’re always failing at it, from their perspective.” He thinks about Warlock again, and the look on his face when Nanny Ashtoreth had said goodbye for the last time. He hadn’t expected the little tyke to cry—he’d taught him better than to form personal attachments to staff—but cry Warlock had, fit to make himself sick. Even now, Crowley’s belly does an uncomfortable flip at the memory.

“Now that _is _something I learned, from our time with the Dowlings,” Aziraphale says, somewhat unexpectedly considering he never even learned how to properly deadhead the roses. “Mrs. Dowling had so much love for Warlock, and it was all entwined inextricably with her conviction she was failing him.”

Crowley waves any sympathy Aziraphale might be feeling away. “She wasn’t wrong, was she? Had a whole demon raising her son right under her nose.”

“She could hardly have been expected to realize, Crowley.” Aziraphale cuts his frittata into smaller and smaller pieces, then gives him an uncharacteristically watchful glance. “Particularly since that demon _did _love her son.”

Crowley’s on his feet, snarling, before he realizes he’s moved. “Stop talking nonsenssse, Aziraphale!”

“Sit down and stop hissing,” Aziraphale says, firm, and for some reason Crowley obeys, although he perches on the edge of his seat. “There. Surely you realize there’s no use in arguing with me about the matter. The emotion of love is one area in which I need no education. And it’s not as if you’re going to be punished for displaying such weakness, so you needn’t fuss.”

“If you’re going to insult me, I’m leaving,” Crowley grouses, but he slouches back into his chair.

“You’ve always been a tiny bit soft for children.” Aziraphale focuses on his plate so closely that Crowley can only see his curls, glowing softly in the sunlight filtering through the restaurant window. “It’s one of the things I-I noticed about you. Even before the Arrangement.”

“Yeah, well.” Crowley glares a crack into his mug. It wends its way through the ceramic a little farther with each word he speaks. “It didn’t look like a very heavenly trait to think of them at the time. Always treating them like collateral damage. I reckoned it must be our job instead.”

He can tell Aziraphale doesn’t believe him, but at least the angel doesn’t press the matter further. “It’s interesting, isn’t it? I believe you may have the closest thing to a parental relationship with another being out of all the occult and ethereal creatures out there. Just another way you are unique, my dear. And it explains how you were so very good at exploiting the relationships’ weaknesses, as well. I suppose in my case I could…” He thinks while he takes another bite, swallows, and says, “I could work to ensure more child care centers with qualified staff are opened in parts of the city that need it. It’s a structural issue, isn’t it? So I would have to move back into politics, and offer my miraculous support to the candidates who campaign on sympathetic platforms. Better a local generation’s lives from the beginning.”

Crowley feels compelled to offer some grudging praise. “That’s quite good, actually.”

Aziraphale gives him a sweet smile. Crowley wants to wipe it off his face. By kissing it till it’s softened open, lips parting to allow Crowley to finally finally _finally _taste—

“Have you started wearing cosmetics again?” Aziraphale surveys his face with clear approval. “The rouge is most becoming. I confess I sometimes long for the days when men here could adorn themselves without social censure. I’m glad it’s coming back ‘round the fashion wheel.”

Crowley has to swallow a couple of times to speak. “I look a blessed tart in most rouge.” The baby in the pushchair sends up an earth-shaking wail as its toy falls to the pavement below the wheels. The mother drops her cup when she bends to retrieve it.

“Well, the shade you’ve chosen today is lovely.” Aziraphale scrapes the remnant of his food onto his fork and glances across the street, following Crowley’s gaze. “Oh! That poor woman spilled her coffee. That’s a small thing to set right.” With a twirl of his wrist, he turns the mother’s cup upright and refills it. She picks it up, expression one of numb surprise, and sips. A smile spreads across her face before she continues walking down the street.

“Yirgacheffe,” Aziraphale explains to Crowley’s inquiring glance.

“Old sap,” Crowley grumbles, but his heart’s not in it.

#

Before the next time he sees Aziraphale, Crowley goes online and orders a wider array of makeup than he needs, but he can’t be expected to try it all in front of a group of overly conscientious attendants, can he? Back when he was Nanny, he manifested his cosmetics as part of the overall look—like the sensible skirt, it helped him focus on the job. There was none of his own personality involved in the decisions of what to wear. For this, he’s going to want to do it by hand.

He dumps the packages onto the marble bathroom countertop and pushes the boxes around, examining the different shades until he chooses a few that hopefully don’t scream _I’m desperate for your approval, please notice the efforts I’m undertaking. For that matter, why not take notice of the Effort in my trousers, which I’ve had in various configurations ever since I watched you eat those oysters in Rome, you are positively _inspirational _on that front_…

Yeah, no. Not even the best lipstick can say all that anyway.

An hour later, he slides his sunglasses on and saunters out to meet the angel. He has vague hopes that someone will try to mess with him about the look on the way, but it’s nearly dinnertime and all the humans just want to get home. They don’t spare him a second glance.

The shop is closed, but the locks slide open when he snaps, regardless.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale calls from the top of a very tall ladder as the bell jingles.

Crowley sniffs with approval. “New odor? Smells like dry rot and black mold.”

“Yes, and it’s been most effective at keeping buyers to a minimum.”

“Good job.” Crowley turns to see Aziraphale approaching and nearly swallows his tongue. “Whattheheavenisthat,” he wheezes out after a moment.

“I would like to suggest a change of plan.” Aziraphale smooths down the front of the absolutely appalling jumper he’s wearing and surveys its fluorescent zig zags warily. “It’s come to my attention that my wardrobe is looking a bit worn. I could, of course, get new clothing, but I also find myself—well, my dear, I’m afraid I’ve begun to _notice fashion _again.” He says it in the same tones a human might say “caught the plague.” “And I don’t have anything suitable! I found this stuffed in a drawer somewhere, I think because a customer left it behind in the 1980s, and I must say I don’t care for it, for all that it’s recent.”

“Angel, no one in their right mind could care for that atrocity. There’s a reason the customer never came back for it. Take it off, it’s twenty-five degrees out.” Aziraphale complies, revealing his usual shirtsleeves beneath the polyester knit. Crowley averts his eyes for his sanity’s sake as the angel tucks his shirttail back into place. “Do you want bespoke?”

“No, that’s not necessary, I’ll perform any necessary alterations. Oh! Is Clark & Debenham still in business? I did like their work. All that beautiful lace.”

Crowley raises his eyebrows. “In the mood for a spot of millinery, are we?” Aziraphale gives him a tiny, sideways smile that proves he remembers the slang definition for “man-milliner” well. “Point of fact, they are open, in a manner of speaking. You can buy men’s clothes there now. Don’t shop there myself but they might have some things you like.”

Aziraphale clasps his hands in delight. “That sounds _lovely_. Do say you’ll accompany me.”

“Course I’ll accompany you. If I don’t, you’re bound to pick up every pair of cargo trousers in the place. Have to stop you being an embarrassment in public, don’t I? C’mon, Bentley’s outside.”

Parking’s a nightmare as usual, and Crowley has to shove a few other cars out of the way and change the curb color to find a good place, but once they’re in the store he can’t regret the trouble. Aziraphale’s like a kid in a candy store, moving from display to display with obvious delight in the humans’ ingenuity. When they get to the men’s department, however, it’s a different story.

“It’s all very close-fit, isn’t it?” He fingers a pair of slim-cut jeans with a dubious expression. “And I really can’t be dealing with denim.”

“No one says you have to.” Crowley glares at the approaching sales clerk till he knocks down a circular rack and has to begin rehanging clothes instead of helping them. “Here, these are a soft weave perfect for a giant hedonist like yourself. What’s your waist size?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Aziraphale huffs in a tone that indicates Crowley’s committed a faux pas.

“Hell’s bells, you are _such _a pain in my arse.” He shoves several of the items nearest them into the angel’s arms. “Try three pairs on and see what fits best, then. I don’t want to be here all night. And here, take these shirts too.”

Aziraphale, accordingly, retires to the fitting rooms. Crowley busies himself hiding anything tartan-patterned from view until Aziraphale’s low-voiced call summons him to the area just outside the fitting room door.

“I’m not certain,” he frets as Crowley approaches. “What do you think?”

Crowley freezes. He thought he’d prepared himself for the sight of the angel in a more modern style, but as it turns out, there was no preparation that would’ve been sufficient. Aziraphale’s older clothes were cut to give the impression of softness—the sort of softness associated with a life of leisure, back when they were created. These… are not. Crowley’s been accustomed to thinking of Aziraphale as plush, but in fact, he can now see, the angel’s not as squishy as he thought. They’ve been in this damp place for so long he’d simply forgotten. He’d be happy either way, of course, but the revelation of the actual truth rolls around in his head like a bowling ball, knocking his other thoughts down like pins.

_Great, just great_, and he can hear his internal voice going screechy at the end, but there’s nothing he can do to control it, because how the heaven is he meant to deal with any of this? It’s not his fault, it’s _not_, why _him?_

“They all look like they’re the right size,” he manages to bite out, after a long moment in which he tries to look anywhere other than Aziraphale’s stockinged feet, which he hasn’t seen this close to naked since the 1100s. “Let’s buy everything and get the hell out of here. If I hear one more easy-listening version of ‘Under Pressure’ I’m going to break the till.”

“Let’s not be hasty.” Aziraphale retreats behind the closed door and Crowley can hear him wrestling with fastenings. “There’s no point in simply throwing money at the problem, my dear. I’ll have to try on several more items, and perhaps visit some other establishments.”

“I can’t imagine a more dreary way to pass an evening.” Crowley’s going to lose his _mind_. The knowledge that only a thin pressed-wood panel is separating him from Aziraphale in a state of undress is more tempting than the damn apple in the Garden.

“Don’t be concerned, I’ll make certain to spread out the expeditions judiciously. For now, I suppose I can make a few preliminary choices. And then we can eat! Had you any restaurant in mind for tonight?”

“Thought we might go to that Sri Lankan place you like so much.”

“An excellent choice!” Aziraphale finally emerges, clothes folded over his arm as neatly as any valet could dream. “I’m dreadfully fond of the shellfish kothu roti. We can continue our discussion on parents and children there, too. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you left out the entire portion of what happens_ after _the children are grown from what we talked about before.”

Crowley can’t stop his lips from curving up ever so slightly. “Clever angel.”

“Of course I am, my dear.” Aziraphale’s gaze catches on Crowley’s mouth, and Crowley’s heart gives a great _thump_. The angel’s expression transforms into sheer delight. “Oh! You must forgive me—I hadn’t noticed. Your new lip color is lovely. You’re very good at that, you know. You’ll have to teach me sometime.”

Crowley flushes, but tries to cover it with a grumble. “Took you long enough.” Aziraphale gives him a reproving look, so he softens enough to say, “Thanks. Thought it made a statement.”

Aziraphale sets the clothes down on the counter and pulls out his wallet. “Did you? What statement is that?”

“I don’t know, just… a statement, really, like a fashion statement.” Certainly nothing like _picture this pair of lips wrapped around your cock _or anything like that. “For fuck’s sake, where did the blessed clerk go?”

Aziraphale cranes his neck around to look. “I believe he’s in that circular rack. He can’t seem to pull himself free of it. Goodness, it is a mess. Poor fellow. Perhaps I’d better help out.”

An hour later, Aziraphale’s settled in front of the aforementioned kothu roti and Crowley’s got a bottle of wine he has a vague feeling won’t be sufficient for getting through the evening emotionally intact.

“So,” Aziraphale says, after a rapturous first mouthful that has Crowley’s chest warming with appreciation, “Adult children and their parents.”

“Lots of room for fomenting discord there.” Crowley takes a sip of his wine and tries not to think about God. The relationship wasn’t exactly like human parents and children, but there are some dynamics between Creator and created which are immutable. Aziraphale can ignore facts all he likes, and frequently he does like. Crowley’s never been capable of the same. “Parents realizing they didn’t make the most of the time they had when the children were brain-squishy, adult children realizing they’ll never be capable of satisfying what the parents want and also realizing their parents are going to die sooner rather than later, parents being disappointed the children didn’t live up to their potential… loads of material to work with.”

“Yes, but, I don’t really wish to be working with it.” Aziraphale hums with thought. “I feel that our discussions thus far have been lacking a sense of general application. Let us discuss the bigger picture. Talk to me about power and time.”

“That’s too big, Aziraphale. We’d be here for a decade. More.”

“That wouldn’t be such a bad thing. I enjoy our conversations.” Crowley loses track of what Aziraphale’s saying, too busy trying to keep his breathing under control, and tunes in again to hear, “...but I do feel that you yourself have a better understanding of the passage of time than I ever have, and I’d like to gain some of your knowledge.”

“It’s because I’ve lived in it since I Fell.”

Aziraphale waits for a moment for him to continue, then gives a _go on_ gesture.

Crowley, as a rule, doesn’t care to talk about himself. He’d prefer to gripe about whatever’s happening, because most things are irritating and they deserve it, but talking about himself might prove to be—well. He’s not sure what it’ll prove to be, but nothing good, certainly.

His mouth, as it’s been wont to do lately, takes the decision away from his mind, voicing his thoughts in sporadic bursts like they’re water being forced out of a hose with a kink in it. “I don’t understand it all. Time won’t run out for me, or at least I never felt it would, until the Antichrist. But I do understand... some of it. That's how I was able to sort of dam it up, there at the airfield. Didn't really stop it, did I? Just put up a barrier and sat behind the wall for a moment with you and Adam before I had to lower it again. There's this sense of lost opportunity. Questions not asked, answers not found. Sometimes you get perspective from the years marching onward, but other times—all you get is a stronger feeling that something was bad for no good reason. Like fucking Caligula. His fucking boots. ‘Tempt him into excesses that’ll get him killed, Crowley,’ but his fate was sealed the moment he was born into the Julii Caesares. No purpose. To any of it.”

Aziraphale’s face is downcast, and his voice very quiet, when he replies. “I must confess that the sense of futility you describe is something I fought as well. Even without dwelling within the confines of time, I would do something like introduce Nero to music, and watch it become a punchline of the most macabre jokes within a generation or two when he had actually opened his own palaces to the homeless in the wake of the fire. Not that he was a good fellow, by any means. I know Hell has him. But my role in his life did seem pointless. And then when I found Adam Young, and told Heaven where to locate him, only to be told it didn’t matter in the slightest… well. If nothing we did matters in the end, to either side, as long as we could have our little war, then what was the point of any of it?”

“I think that’s the point to be honest. The entire history of humanity’s been one long DMZ between Hell and Heaven. Except now there’s another side—ours. We chose humanity.”

“And each other.” The speed with which Aziraphale says it brings that awful warmth back to Crowley’s chest. “So what’s the point of _that, _would you say?” he asks with bright-eyed interest, as if he’s truly invested in hearing Crowley’s thoughts on the matter, and Crowley simply cannot control himself for a moment.

Greatly daring, he slides his hand across the table to cover Aziraphale’s fingertips. “The point is, we can create our own meaning, angel. We can do whatever we want.”

_Tell me what you want, _he begs internally. _Let it be me._

Aziraphale’s hand lies quiescent beneath his own, a little chilly but that’s normal these days. The angel looks out the window into the nighttime street and doesn’t move for a very long time, and he still doesn’t tell Crowley what he needs to hear.

#

Crowley sleeps that night, and the next day, and the next night, and wakes the following day in a foul mood, mostly because he can’t prise out exactly what he’s meant to do. If they were going to continue on as they always have, he would hate it, but he’d be grateful for it too. But these halfway indications that maybe, _maybe_ Aziraphale wants something different, followed by dead air, are driving him completely mad.

Of course, there’s always the option of asking. A straightforward conversation might be followed by actual understanding. It sounds completely horrifying, not least because there’s an equally likely chance that Aziraphale will react with shock and dismay and then just _not talk _to him for a hundred years. It’s not as if it hasn’t happened before. One day you’re making a perfectly reasonable request for a little safety insurance and the next day you’re sleeping through a century while the recalcitrant angel learns the sodding gavotte, and yes Crowley _does _intend the pun, he has to get the minor sins in where he can.

He’s got a tentative message from Aziraphale on the answering machine, which consists of the angel saying, “—who you are, Crowley, why aren’t you capable of having a normal conversation over the phone,” which is rich coming from him of all people.

Crowley sighs and rings Aziraphale back.

“Crowley?” comes the answer after the first ring.

“Of course it’s me, who else would it be,” he snaps out.

Aziraphale’s tone goes stiff. “For your information, I often conduct business on the telephone. You’re hardly my only caller.”

“Then you shouldn’t be answering the phone like that, should you? Unprofessional. Anyway buying more books isn’t conducting business, it’s being a collector.”

A long pause, during which he can picture Aziraphale taking deep breaths in search of oxygen he doesn’t strictly need. At last, he says, “You disappeared. I was worried.”

Crowley actually sways, a little, as though the angel pulled a rug from beneath his feet. He fumbles for words and finds them after too long a silence. “Er, you could always come by. Door’s open for you, anytime.”

“I didn’t wish to be a nuisance.”

“You’re never that.” Which is a lie. Aziraphale is frequently a nuisance, and a bother, and a maddening thorn in Crowley’s side. It’s a pity he’s also so damned endearing. “I was just asleep.” It tastes like a sour strawberry, but he spits out, “Sorry,” anyway.

“Oh! In that case, would you like to meet for dinner?”

_No. Give me what I want or tell me it’s impossible so I can nurse my wounds. Everything aches all the time and I’m so fucking tired._

“Name the place,” he says, and curses himself in every language he knows while Aziraphale does so.

Aziraphale’s in the mood for sushi, so Crowley orders sake and looks moodily over the array of food that arrives in front of his companion.

“Would you like one?” Aziraphale asks, offering his plate. “I know you don’t often eat, but these prawn rolls might be worth making an exception. And you do love wasabi.”

Crowley sighs, but the angel’s hopeful gaze makes his resolve all squishy, as usual. “All right, I’ll have one.”

The food is, of course, delicious. Nothing but the best for Aziraphale.

“So here’s another sort of relationship we’ve not discussed,” Aziraphale begins without warning. Crowley lifts his sake to hide his face a little, in case he can’t control it when whatever comes next occurs, and it turns out to be the right call because Aziraphale continues, “Romantical relationships.”

Crowley practically inhales the sake. It takes a moment before he feels certain his voice will come out normal. “For fuck’s sake, angel, no one says ‘romantical’ anymore.”

Aziraphale waves away that consideration like the inconsequentiality it is. “You know very well what I mean.”

“I do, which is why I need significantly larger amounts of alcohol in my bloodstream before we pursue the discussion. I wish to Somebody it was something stronger than sake.” Crowley waves the empty bottle in the air with a pointed look at the server which has Aziraphale murmuring in dismay.

“I’ve no notion why you need to fortify yourself for a discussion about generalities,” Aziraphale says.

“You’re clever; you can make an educated guess. I promise I’ll be honest if you get it right.” Aziraphale hesitates. Crowley’s heart jumps against his will, but Aziraphale doesn’t do anything else, so he lets his half-smile elongate into a smirk. “Didn’t think so.”

Aziraphale waits till the new bottle gets to the table to begin. “Why do so many husbands and wives detest one another? Tell me what that has to do with power.”

“It has literally everything to do with power. Not in each individual relationship, but in the overall structure that creates the dynamic and perpetuates it.” That was too wordy by far. Crowley takes a deep breath and tries again, this time in his normal speech. It won’t do to allow Aziraphale to see how much this means to him. “Humans don’t need an excuse to hate each other. You know that as well as I. Proximity just adds more opportunities to slide love right into hate. Husbands and wives are in each other's pockets, gives them plenty of chances to grow to detest each other. Easiest thing in the world to push them into it. Not to mention it all started out as a business proposition. Nothing like business to breed hatred.”

Aziraphale pours for him. “Yes, but nowadays, where we are, it’s far easier for one party or another to leave the relationship once they determine they don’t like being there anymore. I could see what you mean if it were still ‘till death do us part because the law won’t allow,’ and a dowry exchange, but it’s meant to be all about love, now.”

Crowley downs the entire cup in one go. “It’s about time, as well.”

“I thought it might be.” Aziraphale pours again. His own cup is still full.

“See, the humans trick themselves. They meet, and they find out they have a little bit in common when they talk. And then they talk some more, and they have a little more in common than they thought the first time. Also, sex.”

Aziraphale folds his hands on the table and regards him steadily. “Sex?”

“Right. So they fuck, and they both get off, and that makes them think they have loads in common. Hormones. Tricky bastards. A year passes, they talk during maybe an hour a day, fuck a couple times a week, and they think they know each other well enough to move in together, and they’re roommates for another while, then one or the other thinks, ‘next step’s marriage,’ the other one agrees to it. Trouble is, you can’t get to know someone entirely in five years. Or ten years. Humans. Always changing, right. Who you know now, completely different person a decade down the road.” Crowley notices with vague surprise that his sake cup is full again. He drinks. “It’s all a crapshoot. Add a kid or two, and all the parent stuff we talked about before, no surprise about half the time they roll over one morning and decide one can’t abide the other.”

“A crapshoot,” Aziraphale echoes, rolling the syllables around like he’s speaking through a mouthful of something disgusting. “So, from your point of view, they simply never have time to truly know each other.”

Crowley waves his hand, dismissing the human lifespan. “Eighty years, give or take. Not enough. You luck out, or you don’t, and then you die.”

Aziraphale leans over the table, still giving him that intent look. “And if they had more time? If they had a hundred years, five hundred, a thousand?”

“Well, they used to, didn’t they? Noah? Nearly a thousand. Still got in those awful rows with Naamah about his drinking after the Flood.” Crowley shudders at the memory. There’d been few places to hide from the noise, in those days. Not if your assignment was to tempt humans in the general area. “And they’d been married centuries before that.”

“Bear with me, my dear. How does this all fit into the notion of power?”

“All things being equal—which they aren’t. Men and women. Not equal. Races. Not equal. But say you have two blokes, same race, same income. All other things being equal, power differences are still there. Because one always loves the other one more.”

“Is that so.” Aziraphale’s voice has gone very quiet.

Crowley plunges forward, undaunted. “Absolutely, angel. The one who loves more is the one who’s more willing to bend over backwards for the other. Give them whatever they want. Even if it’s frippery nonsense. Do whatever makes them happy. The other one might love the first one too, but not as much, and then they both know who has the power. Either the other one uses it to make the first one happy, or they use it to get what they want for themselves.”

“What if they both love each other the same amount?”

“Doesn’t happen. Not possible. Someone’s always more willing to show it.”

“Being willing to show it is a sign of greater love? And therefore, less power?”

“Course! Showing how you feel, it’s like a dog rolling on its back. Kick it or pet it, it still made itself a target first. Power’s in the other’s hands. Eventually the dog starts to resent it. Or, no it doesn’t. It’s a dog, it doesn’t care. But humans do, unless the other person makes it worth the humiliation.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale sits back and looks down at his plate as if he forgot it’s there. “Not a great believer in romance, are you?”

“In my line of work, you could hardly expect me to be.” He’s seduced so many married politicians, aristocrats, and city planners over the millennia he’s lost count, always in pursuit of some hellish agenda or other, and it’s inevitably been too easy once he figured out what genitals were the right choice. “But, you know, humans. No matter what they’re into, or want out of, it’ll all be over soon.”

“Naturally.” Aziraphale pops another shrimp roll into his mouth and chews meditatively.

Crowley looks at him in apprehension, suddenly conscious of the fact that he’s talked most of the time they’ve been at their table, which is the opposite of the way he usually likes to do things. “Not that it has anything to do with you, of course.”

“It has a great deal to do with me.” Aziraphale’s eyes are like two chips of ice in a face that’s gone white and set, completely at odds with his usual expression upon eating something delicious.

Crowley’s heart, irrepressible bother that it is, does the leapy thing again. He’s going to take a hammer to it soon. “Oh?”

After an oddly tense pause, Aziraphale does a sort of full-body shake that puts Crowley in mind of a dog that’s exiting an uncomfortable experience. “Of course! After all, I did ask you to educate me on the ways time and power structures affect human relationships. If I don’t understand the one that lies at the base of most art and a great deal of life, how can I be effective? I appreciate your insights, my dear.” He swallows. “But forgive me. I still have more questions. What if the two parties involved believe they have nothing in common? What if their mutual regard develops not because they believe they have, at last, found someone who truly understands them, only to be proven wrong as the years go by, but because they slowly come to realize that, in fact, the other person actually _does _understand them? In some cases, better than they understand themselves? And—again, you must forgive me, I find I am fully of inquiry tonight—what if it turns out that the two of them are the only two people in the world who truly have the ability to understand each other?”

“Well, that’s just bollocks, isn’t it?” Crowley sneers, craning his neck to look into the empty sake bottle. “This stuff doesn’t taste like sake, Aziraphale. I shan’t tip. But anyway, no such thing as only one other person who could understand humans. They’re all the same, except for the parts when they’re different. Relationships are all the same too.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

#

Crowley often has the feeling that he has said too much. That feeling occurs whenever he says anything real, at all. Discretion is the name of the game when one is an agent of Hell. Any wagging tongue will be quickly cut off, literally, and any foolish revelation of one’s true opinion will usually result in other, even less pleasant repercussions. It’s best to stick with griping, when in doubt.

So, when the feeling he said too much at dinner with Aziraphale begins to nag at him, he at first dismisses it as a holdover from millennia of avoiding his satanic superiors’ attention. It’s the _angel_, after all. No payback could possibly be visited upon his head because he said what he really thought to Aziraphale, of all people.

But then two days go by without a phone call, and three, and four, and five, and six, and on day seven Crowley swallows his pride and goes to check on the angel. He finds the bookstore closed, really closed, not just closed to visitors, and the locks don’t respond to his commanding snap.

“Aziraphale?” He cranes his neck and looks up at the windows above the shop proper, trying to sense his presence and failing utterly. He’s fairly certain he’d know if something evil or, worse, Heavenly, befell Aziraphale, but he has no idea what’s actually happened.

No reply is forthcoming, so he goes back to his flat and broods for another week. Honestly. He sleeps for a couple of days and the angel panics, but then he feels free to go and pull a stunt like this? It’s hypocritical, that’s what it is, and he’ll be sure to tell Aziraphale so as soon as they see each other again.

And on day fifteen, after reviewing their most recent conversation for the first time, Crowley sits bolt upright in his bed and spits out, “_Fuck._”

#

So clever. He’s always known Aziraphale is so fucking _clever_, hasn’t he? But he’s gotten lazy, that’s what. Completely dropped his guard like the rankest amateur. Allowed that fluffy exterior to make him forget that Aziraphale is absolutely ruthless when he decides he wants something. Let the angel sneak past his defenses and pose the only question that matters:

_Can we allow ourselves to love each other, and not ruin everything?_

And, as a demon will, answered with the worst part of the truth:

_Probably not._

“But—but—” he stammers out to the darkened gray of his bedroom walls, “I didn’t mean that part! That part wasn’t about _us!_” Clutching his hair, he collapses back on his pillows and gnashes his teeth. “ARGH.”

Hours pass while he stares at the ceiling, paralyzed by his own folly. At last, however, his memory clicks back through its slideshow (yes, it still has slides instead of a PowerPoint or Prezi, he’s a modern demon but there are some relics of the past in there) and presents Aziraphale, nattering on about the “charming country cottage to let” he found in the South Downs.

_Why don’t you go, then? _he sneered at the time.

_Perhaps I will. Only, I shouldn’t like to go on my own, if—_

And there he stopped. And Crowley, of course, mentally filled in, _if I have to ride the train _as the rest of the sentence, and told him, _Don’t expect me to give you a lift to the country. One day and you’ll be bored to tears, begging for a restaurant that isn’t a pub. We’ll have to come back straightaway, or go to Brighton, and you know people always save their worst behavior for watering-holes._

_What if I don’t get bored? What if we have a lovely time? _Aziraphale asked. But Crowley hadn’t been able to stretch his imagination that far.

His voice sounds thin and lost even to his own ears. “I am—so incredibly dimwitted.”

#

Aziraphale does not sleep. He prefers other forms of escapism, and one could argue that he’s needed them less than Crowley, over the years, due to the sense of righteousness that pervaded his days. It might not seem as urgent to shut the world out when you’re welcoming it with a sense of curiosity and delight and conviction in the correctness of all you’re doing. However shaky that conviction grows as time passes.

Crowley’s well aware of this fact, naturally, so he’s taken aback when he knocks on the cottage door and is greeted by a tousled angel, squinting into the early morning light.

Aziraphale blinks at him, bleary-eyed, rubbing his curls with an absentminded hand. “Oh! Crowley! I didn’t expect you.”

He steps back in implicit welcome, and Crowley swaggers in, taking in the measure of the place. It’s clearly been renovated lately, for all its classic exterior. Lots of modern windows, letting in the light, all new hardwood floors. It could be worse. He turns on his heel and surveys Aziraphale from head to toe, taking in the pinstriped blue pajamas with glee. He would have expected tartan, and he _loves _when Aziraphale surprises him. It’s almost enough to distract him from his purpose. “Angel, what are you doing sleeping?”

Aziraphale’s mouth goes prim. “Well. I thought it might be time to try a new experience or two.” He waits for a moment, while Crowley shoves his hands into his pockets and looks around for a distraction. “Crowley? May I ask what prompted your visit? I had thought you didn’t want to come. In fact, how did you know I was here?”

Crowley clears his throat. “You know. Spend a thousand years, give or take, on a particular island, you get a feel for the place. Can sense where things are, or aren’t.” If you really try hard and are determined that it’ll work, anyway.

“Ah. And you were sensing me because...?” Aziraphale lifts his brows.

Shit. He’s not going to make this easy on Crowley. “You took off, didn’t you?” He can hear the edge of whinging in his voice but hearing it doesn’t make it possible to get rid of it. “Not a word, not a note. Just disappeared. Not very sporting.”

“I didn’t realize we were playing a game.” Aziraphale crosses to a comfortable-looking armchair and sits, crossing his legs like he’s at his leisure. Bastard.

Crowley digs his toe into a knot in the closest floorboard. “We weren’t. At least I wasn’t. Maybe you were, I don’t know.” He takes a deep breath. “Look—the last time we talked—”

“Oh yes! Very informative. I appreciate you letting me know how you truly feel.” Aziraphale doesn’t look appreciative. In fact, his expression could be best described as “Arctic.” An _avuncular _Arctic, to be sure. But on the subzero side of “kind.”

“I might’ve misspoke, is all.” The whinging intensifies. “You shouldn’t have traded out the sake!”

A faint flush tinges Aziraphale’s cheeks, but he shows no other sign of repentance. “You said you wanted something stronger. I performed a miracle in your service. You should be grateful, all things considered. _In vino veritas._”

Crowley flings himself into a rickety wooden rocking chair and nearly bangs his head on the wall before he catches it mid-rock. “Partial _veritas_. Partial. I thought we were talking strictly about humans! You’re a blessed sneak, is what it is. Creeping in all sideways. If I’d realized—” He kicks his heels, just once, against the floor, then stills himself once more. “Angel! You must know by now. Tell me you know.”

Aziraphale surveys him, and it’s supplication to Heaven all over again, with just as much likelihood of a favorable response.

But then some of the coolness thaws, and the angel sighs. “Know _what._”

The sudden relief makes his spine go bendy. He sinks to his knees on the floor. “That—that—you’re it for me.” He’ll crawl, if necessary, wind like a creeping thing on the ground. It feels like he already is. His tongue is tangled into knots but he tries to unravel some words from it. “That I want… you, and me. Us. We’re not humans. We can make it work.”

Aziraphale crosses the room and kneels, facing him. He appears unmoved by the declaration. “Can we? I confess I’m unsure. All the pitfalls of romance to be found in human relationships can be found between us as well. I would much rather remain good friends than wind up enemies once more.”

“No. No!” Crowley’s hands spasm, into fists and out again, grasping for an argument to sway him. “We’re not so like them as all that. We’ve been friends even when we were supposed to be at each other’s throats. We’ve known each other since the beginning of the world.”

“Crowley. My dear.” The gentleness in Aziraphale’s voice is so deceptive. It lulls you into a false sense of complacency that lets him whammy you into next week with a verbal sucker punch right after, still said in that same exact tone. “I can’t help but recall what you said about power. I thought about it, after I went home that night. By all the measures you gave, I am the one with the power of caring less in our relationship. It hardly matters whether or not my heart disagrees with your assessment. What matters is how _you _feel. I have not shown my own feelings in a way that would allow you to feel valued by me. And therefore you believe you have less power, which puts you at a natural disadvantage. Not to mention predisposing any romantical relationship to failure before it even begins.”

Crowley finds himself fiddling with the hem of Aziraphale’s pajama shirt. He refuses to let go. Think think think. He’s still the serpent. Still the original tempter. Still a questioner. “So… you’re saying I’ve loved you too well for you to allow yourself to love me back?”

Aziraphale visibly falters. “I—no, I’m saying—surely you must see there’s a differential there. You’ve done so much more for me, over the years, than I have for you. Ur—Paris—the Blitz—my jacket, for Heaven’s sake—all while I fussed and fumed about paperwork and regulations.”

“So, because you didn’t reciprocate obviously in the past, you’re obligated to hurt me in the future?” Crowley scoots closer. One hand traces the hem to the buttons of Aziraphale’s shirt. Up one, two, three, four, till his palm rests on Aziraphale’s breastbone.

The angel doesn’t appear to notice. “Of course not! I don’t wish to hurt you any more, is the point. And if you already felt neglected or underappreciated by me in the past, I fear in the future I would lose the friendship that’s sustained me for so long, all in pursuit of a nebulous promise of gratification.”

Crowley inches even closer, until he’s half-reclining across Aziraphale’s lap, his head resting on the angel’s shoulder. He folds his sunglasses and puts them into his pocket so they don’t dig into his face. Aziraphale’s heartbeat picks up its pace, hard enough for Crowley to feel through their clothes. “Well. That’s the problem of time, isn’t it. You never know how it’s going to go until it’s gone. But, if you like, I might have a solution for your issue.”

Aziraphale’s voice comes out breathy and uncertain. “What’s that?”

“You could start making it up to me.” Crowley toys with the button closest to hand. “You could start now, if you like. If you think things between us have been so disparate, no time like the present to begin evening the scales, so to speak.” His courage nearly fails, but he closes his eyes, presses his face into the curve of Aziraphale’s neck, and mumbles, “Kissing would count for a lot,” into the familiar scent of the angel’s skin.

Aziraphale begins to laugh, quiet, with genuine amusement. “Oh, Crowley. You old tempter.” Crowley starts to draw back, thinking the jig is up and wanting to spare himself the pain of outright rejection (again), but Aziraphale cups the back of his head in one gentle hand and looks over his face with knowing affection that flays Crowley’s chest into a bloody mess. “You win,” the angel whispers, and presses his mouth to Crowley’s.

And oh. Oh. _Oh. _Aziraphale has always been so soft. It’s the type of soft that’s dangerous to a demon, because it tempts you into forgetting precisely how lethal he can be when inspired. His open enjoyment of what the world has to offer has been like a shelter from Crowley’s growing cynicism for almost as long as they’ve known each other. Crowley’s never allowed himself to consider what all that softness and delight would be like when focused on a single demonic object. He's not really used to winning, when it comes to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale, incurable pleasure-seeker that he is, has clearly developed his kissing skills to an expert level. It’s not just mouth mashed to mouth, but his thumb relishing Crowley’s jawline with its slow sweep. It’s his nose nuzzling Crowley’s cheek between kisses, the way he smiles when he does it, the gentle query of his tongue when he returns to Crowley’s mouth, the tiny sound of appreciation he makes when Crowley parts his lips and lets him in. He rearranges his legs, sitting crisscross, and Crowley climbs to straddle him.

Aziraphale draws back just enough to say, “Dearest.”

Crowley finds himself clutching at the angel’s sleeves like a small child clings to a blankie in a thunderstorm. “Please don’t stop,” he croaks, shameless.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to, not as long as you beg so prettily.” Aziraphale kisses the tender spot just below his ear. His hands move in lazy sweeps across Crowley’s back, but their deliberation doesn’t fool Crowley. Want pours out of the angel like a waterfall. “Only, I think I would make far greater progress on equalizing our balance if we were in a more comfortable spot. Say, the bed? It’s just through that door, there.”

Crowley laughs into his angel’s chest. “Now who’s the tempter? Yeah. All right. We can go to bed.”

“I think you’ll find that we’re on considerably more even ground, in that case.” Aziraphale reaches to cup Crowley’s cheek in the palm of his hand. Crowley leans into the touch, eyes falling half-shut. “My darling. I shall dedicate the next millennium at least to making certain you know that I am utterly powerless to resist you.”

Crowley sighs with contentment. “That should be long enough, I think.”


End file.
